You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hi, everyone, welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about the choices we make and where they lead us. My guest today is known for being an actress in cult classic movies like Hairspray and cry Baby. She was a successful talk show host for many years, and now she's creating documentary films about things she is passionate about, from natural birth to marijuana to birth control. She's the host of her own podcast, The High Life. This is part
one of our conversation. Please welcome the incomparable Ricky Lake to the Eyes Choose Me podcast. We've never met, Well, we've met, but like little brief encounters.
It doesn't really count.
But yes, and I feel like I know you same same, Okay, good good. I love to hear about where people come from and why they are the way they are, So if I could, I would love to just explore your childhood a little bit, because our childhoods have such a huge impact on who we are and like the rest of our lives. So can you take me back to your beginnings a little bit? Like what kind of a household did you grow up in?
Yeah? So I am from Westchester County, New York. Officially, I was raised in Hastings on Hudson, which is like twenty five minutes outside of the city. And I was a pretty normal kid. I had a lot of personality, and I had two parents that you know, stayed married until for forty three years. So my childhood I was in a you know, a home that had its own dysfunction for sure. It's just my sister and me were fourteen months apart. I'm the older sibling. I love to perform.
I you know, I'm a little bit older than you. I'm fifty five, soon to be fifty six. And I grew up, you know, watching Little House on the Prairie, and in fact, I changed my name to Laura Ingalls when I was in like kindergartener first grade. Like, I was obsessed with Melissa Gilbert and which you know, your costar Shannon Daugherty had one of her starts on that show. But I was like, I saw too oh, and I
saw Annie. When I was six years old, I went to the saw the original Broadway cast and my grandma Sylvia, who you asked, you know, how am I the way I am? Or how did I become who I am. So much of it was having my grandma Sylvia as my role model, as the matriarch of our family. She died when I was nine, but she was the one that growing up just out of New York, I went and saw Broadway, I went to see opera, I went to see the ballet and so all of that culture.
You know. I remember seeing Annie and I point and I was like, I want to be her. I yeah, did you ever do Annie?
No?
Were you a singer? Did you sing? No? Okay, I was. I wanted to be a singer, and I just like I just saw that and I was like, that's what I want to be. And my mother she did the best she could, but he her, she rejected me and the idea of that before anyone else had the chance to. She told me that I wasn't the starving orphan type and basically encouraged me never to pursue that. So she
didn't cast you. She didn't carry me the audition. She didn't and you know, and I understand why now, but at the time it was, you know, it was the ultimate like slap in the face. And I, you know, studied singing. I studied dancing. I went through high school and got really lucky at eighteen to have hear about the audition for a character Tracy Turnblad in the first Hairspray, and so it literally changed my entire trajectory. I'd never been around openly gay people. I was very sort of
sheltered and green and naive and young. So yeah, to say that, like, my world just completely exploded after that and moved my I got to move to la at nineteen, I visited you on that not you, but on the set of Beverly Hills nine on two one O, because the guy who played my boyfriend, Link Lark and Michael Saint Gerard he was on he had an arc on nine on two and oh, and I came and watched you guys work and was totally star struck.
Oh my god. I wish I had known that that was happening.
I could have said a lot. Yeah, it's like one of those you know, you have these these memories. I don't have a lot of memories because I'm old now and I took a lot of ambience back in the day. But I do remember that set, and I met Ali Adler, who was a writer on your show. At that time, and just it was a classroom scene and I just like, I just I felt really young. I was probably nineteen years old, and I just was like so starstruck and it just yeah, it was a really really fun experience.
See you guys work.
That's a good story. Thank God for your grandma, by the way, Yeah, because otherwise your talents may have never come to the surface. And you, you know, like you have such a gift. Who knows if it would have happened.
Yeah. What she gave me was like a belief in myself that you can do anything. I mean, she told me, she's like, you are the best, You're the smartest, you're the prettiest, you're the most talented. And you know, clearly I wasn't, but but I believed it in her eyes and so that just like just yeah, it was just that memory, that muscle memory of like she thinks I can do this. And that's been really like like a through line of my entire career because who thought I
could be a talk show host? I was twenty three when they offered me that job. I mean, I just I was like, Okay, they think I could do it? Say all right, I'm going to do it?
Where did that come from? Like, wait, I'm skipping ahead, but I really didn't know.
Well, I come from my friends that have known me for a very long time that I don't have a doubt gene, Like I don't doubt myself. And that's kind of true where I just like sort of jump feet first. I'm very impulsive. I'm extremely impulsive. I act many times before I have a chance to really think things through. But if you look at my life and the choices I've made, it's mostly worked out. Like my instincts are
usually right. And yeah, I love that about myself. Like I'm just one of those people like I get an idea, I get a bug up my ass, and I just go for it, and I yeah, it's worked out pretty well.
Similar, I too, am impulsive, and I have made choices very quickly in my life and somehow they've worked out. Even if they didn't work out, they worked out.
Give me an example. What's an example that comes to mind? Um?
Okay, well, having a baby when I was twenty one, twenty two, twenty three in that era that was impulsive and crazy because I was so young.
Yeah, I was twenty eight when I had my first so it's still very young, considering like all my friends, they're having kids much. I have my friend, my friend Rachel Harris is my age, and she has a five year old and seven year old. Oh okay, and I have a twenty seven year old and a twenty three year old. I can't even imagine trading places like Freaky Fridaying with her. That would be crazy. But yeah, I had my kids pretty young. But yeah, I mean so yeah,
so twenty one. Got so how old are your kids?
Twenty seven, twenty one and eighteen?
So the twenty seven when you were pregnant when I was your daughter? I think you have three girls. I have two boys. Your oldest daughter was born in ninety seven. Mine too. How is she doing? She's launched, She's awesome. Is she the one you have the clothing line with? No?
She? This is the one that lives in New York and doing her thing.
Yeah? Mine, loving heart waiting.
For her to come back.
You are see. I'm I'm okay. If they never come back, I mean they want them to visit. I love them visiting. I'm so glad they have their own lives. I'm an empty nester. I was one of those parents. That when I dropped my son off at school. And I love my children and I love that I'm a mom and it's my favorite role of my life as being their mom. But when I dropped him off at college, I peeled out of that driveway. I couldn't get out of there fast enough and like, Okay, one down, one to go.
You know you're honesty, It's true, and you know your whole thing is about choosing you. Yeah, I feel like this time in my life is like all about like I she was myself and choosing this relationship with my new husband. I am playing more than I've played in a really long time. It just feels like my fifties is like the brightest time of my life is right now. It's like reaping the fruits of my labor. Like I've worked really hard, I've done the right thing for so long.
I've made the sacrifices for everyone around me. I've shown up for work, I've delivered, and now I kind of I don't want to say I'm coasting, but I'm certainly coasting way more than I ever have from the rest of my life.
For sure, it feels good. I can feel it through this TV screen. I'm so happy for you being happy. It's good. Oh we have so many parallels. There's so so many. We both got started in the industry when we're pretty young. How old are you about the same age as you. I was like sixteen seventeen, had very you know, great childhood idyllic. I feel like I can really relate to you, and I want to know when you were growing up in the public I of celebrityism.
What did you think of all of it? How did it feel to you?
Well, so I was eighteen, So if you were sixteen, you were a minor. I was not a miner when I got hairspray. I was. I was just a freshman in college and I you know, so I was an adult quote unquote. But it's definitely not like mature in any way. And I didn't know anything different, Like it's just it was just my experience. And also like my start was with John Waters and this very specific type of experience. So it was very felt like camp more
than it felt like a job. You know. I was working really hard, but it was super fun and playful and I got famous. Like I So, I've told this story before, but I'll share with you. John Waters sat me down after we finished making Hairspray. So you know, again, I'm eighteen. We just had this summer of my life the movie. You know, you wrap the movie, but then it takes months for it to come out. And he sat me down after the making of the film and
he said, I want to give you some advice. He's like, I have three I want you to remember these three things. Always stay humble. Always stay true to yourself. If you're going to read and believe the good things people write about you, you're going to have to read and believe the bad. Basically, keep it all in check, keep it all in perspective. And I feel like that advice, that talking to and the mentoring he's given me over the years has managed to help me stay really pretty grounded
and very normal, you know. And so yes, it was weird becoming famous and making a lot of money and people knowing my name. I mean, I loved it. It's what I wanted. It's what I dreamed of when I saw Annie at six, you know, so like here I am, like my dream has come true. And it was ultimately like really positive, like there was nothing you know, it was only when my career stopped, you know, when I was about twenty two, twenty one, twenty two, and I didn't get this big part that I wanted. I was
really devastated. It was a movie called dog Fight. It's a movie that probably no one really remembers, but it was with River Phoenix and Lily Taylor got the part. But it was like something I really really wanted and it didn't happen for me. And then I couldn't get arrested. I was on China Beach and I didn't get picked up my option, you know, the whole thing that things
happen in our business. And I went from like making all this money to making nothing and had to give up my house and I was homeless for a short time. I had to move. I mean, it was but it was the most humbling experience that I'm so grateful for. You know. In the end, yes, I lost probably about two or three hundred thousand dollars in that, you know, that learning experience, but it taught me so much, you know, about the value of a dollar, and thankfully I didn't
have a family to support at that time. You know, It's just like changed everything. And then I got my talk show. Then I went. Oh, I also went on it like a crash crash crazy diet because I realized that the reason, you know, one of the reasons I wasn't getting parts anymore, I wasn't getting cast in anything, is because the novelty of being the fat girl had kind of worn off, and I felt like, Okay, the only thing I can control in my life is my physicality and how I take care of myself. So I
went on this crash diet. I lost one hundred pounds, and then the talk show came my way and lifted me out of my uh pover and it changed my life for sure.
Two things on that Okay, so I love those words of a wisdom that he gave you, right, really good for John Waters. Yeah, those are like fatherly mm hmm. That was necessary guidance. But one of them is a little hard for me. The part where you are supposed to believe in yourself and love and read and believe the things that people write about you, the good things,
but also the bad things. Now, with social media the way it is and everybody having some sort of a platform to say whatever they think good or bad, do you still believe that reading bad things about yourself is something you should let in.
I mean, it's a totally different ballgame now, you know. And for me, like I'm so glad I don't do a talk show now you know that. I mean, I do what I do, and I choose to do what I'm doing, like I do my own podcast. I love it. It's like you know, it's it's it's completely something I
want to do. But as far as being in a situation where you're having to speak out and be whether it's political or controversial or you know, you can't make everyone happy and there's this instant reaction from stranger, I mean, it's just a brutal thing that I don't really participate much in. Like all my posting is very positive, it's all about joy, it's all about you know, like very
much what you're about. Yeah, yeah, I really I think it's like the devil in a lot of ways, Like we have like made this deal and now with what's coming up with AI, I mean, it is all terrifying. But the difference is at fifty five, I know who I am, I love who I am. I am, Like i feel like I'm the best me I've ever been and that comes from life experience that comes from, like, you know, the things I've achieved, the things I've overcome. I mean, I've had like a really beautiful journey, and
a lot of it's been really hard. I lost my partner, my last partner, to mental illness and suicide, and that was one of probably the hardest thing I've ever had to I can't say I've overcome it, but to deal with and learn to live with. But like, yeah, the things people say about me, it doesn't really affect me at this point. And I think that is like you know that cliche when you turn fifty, you don't give a shit what other people think about you. It's none
of your business what people think about you. And it's kind of true for me, Like I definitely nothing really gets to me. And I'm really also lucky that I have a lot of good will in this industry. People feel like they know who I am, they like me, they root for me, and so there's really not a lot of negative stuff that comes my way.
Thanks right, right, Well, that's because you're just a positive energy and positive attracting.
Positive I think. So, I mean, I am really positive and I have a lot to be grateful for.
And you've had so much. I think also too, it's about those hardships that we've endured and that we've lived through and learned so much from that make us so much more full of gratitude and hope and you know, just a sense of like achievement that you survive something so terrible. You know, you really start to turn to your self in those moments instead of listening to other people. I think that's really yeahful.
I mean, I think all of the traumatic things that I've had in my life, and I've had my share, you know, we all have stuff we go through, but I think all of it has in the end been a gift, you know, like I've gotten something out of all of the hardship, you know, from being sexually molested as a small child to like just you know, living through nine to eleven. You know, nine to eleven. I was there on that day downtown, watched the whole thing unfold before my very eyes, and I was a new mom.
I had a two month old at that time, So that was you know, deeply, deeply like world life changing everything. But like for me, it got me to kind of make a decision on where I wanted to go with my career where I wanted to raise my family. I didn't want to be in New York anymore. I left New York, I left my talk show, I left my marriage. I mean, all of that happened after that experience watching that unfold, and in the end it was a gift
for me. I started focusing on documentary film work, which is it's like what I want my legacy to be is like these these pieces of work that really question why things are the way they are. In that case with the birth world, you know, so I sort of found my voice and I found my true passion through living through something so traumatic.
The other thing I wanted to circle back on that you said was the novelty of being the fat girl wore off. How do you think that shaped who you are today? Having to really be fronted and faced with your appearance being connected in a negative way by people. How did that affect your sense of self and your your security and yourself all these years.
That's a lot to do, A really good question. I mean, ultimately, it was incredible that I was one of the very first I can't think of another ingen new girl that was two hundred pounds, you know. So it was amazing to like break the mold in that way and to be so well received, And it was believable watching that movie. Even today, it's believable that she wins the contest and she gets the guy. She pause.
I love that movie so much. I could watch it over. We have watched it a million times in our house. But you shaped us, Thank you.
It was so fun and it was me like, I am just like you are you are. There's a lot of you that's Kelly, right, yes, right right, Well, at least I want to think that, but I'm very much I'm Tracy Turnblad trapped in a fifty five year old gray haired woman. It just it just, I mean a difference. Like I was two hundred pounds and adorable when I did that movie, But I was two hundred and sixty pounds when I did Cry Baby three years later, you know, and two hundred and sixty pounds on a five foot
three inch frame. It was a lot, and and it wasn't working anymore like I was, you know, would go out on it. I just wasn't getting the parts, and so I was in a desperate place where I was supporting myself and I was running out of money and I needed to do something that I could control. And it really was like when I think back on it, you know, it wasn't the healthiest way. I starved myself. I basically didn't stop eating altogether, but I ate very, very very little. I joined a gym and would ride
my bike in the valley. I live north of Victory if you know where that is, like Woodman and Victory. And at the time it was whatever nineteen was that ninety two, ninety one ninety two in that area, and I no one would viit. My friends wouldn't come visit me. It was like a very much a Spanish speaking neighborhood. I lived in a poolhouse my back My little house
was a like I had a sliding glass door. I mean, it was a very humbling time for me, and it was appropriate for someone who is my age, you know, who was like went from riches rags to riches and riches to rags, and then I think it was really empowering and being able to change my body in the
way I did. It worked like I was, you know, went from a size twenty four to a size twelve, you know, in about like six or eight months, like really really short period of time, and I did it with the sole purpose of a getting a little bit healthier and B getting a job. You know, I needed
to work. And so the pilot of the talk show came around at that time, and it kind of I think worked as the narrative or my story of like this relatable girl, this young woman that people root for, like Tracy Turnblad, you know, I'm like this underdog kind of character. And so it wasn't calculated in getting a talk like I never thought I was gonna get a talk show. Who thinks a twenty something that you're going
to be picked to do something like that. But it just was like this divine thing that just happened and it just all worked. Oh did I answer your question?
You did? I feel as if it made you believe in yourself even more than you already did, and it made you fight for what you knew was right for you.
Yeah.
I like that that.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I I it's so it's so I don't spend a lot of time like thinking back of like like who I was back then, you know, like why I did this or why I did that? But yeah, the talk show was such like a comfortable arena for me. I was so it was a natural thing. Like in the beginning, I would just channel Oprah because I was such an Oprah fan and Phil Donahue Bless his soul, and Sally Jesse, Like I was a big
watcher of those shows. So when they gave me the microphone and said go, you know, go do it yourself. You know, I was like, all right, what would Oprah say? I would channel her? Oh what would Opra say? But then as I found my footing, It's like I just I just was a really good listener, and I was really interested and curious about people and relationships. It was fascinating, and then it was fun and that it became like the party that everyone wanted to come to every day
at our show. You know, it was like it was really special, and I don't think I recognized it. Then when I'm in it, I'm just in it, and I was like, oh my god, I'm making this money and people are like shouting my name, like this is so cool. But it just felt so normal, like Okay, this is the next chapter of my career. You know. It's now looking back on, like what the hell was I thinking? How presumptuous for me to assume I know what people
should do when they're you know, in relationships. It's like, yeah, I didn't even know who I was at that time, but it was it was fun well.
Because we grew up in the way we did, like in the public eye like that. It's it's as if we have somehow been encapsulated in people's minds as that younger version of ourselves, you know, like people will always see us the way they first saw us. Is that ever hard for you or do you embrace that?
I think it's changed because I have been I've literally like had all these different facets of my career, you know, like people know me and it's really funny. John Waters and I'll joke about it. We're in an airport and like, you know, a certain type of personal code to me. Oh they know me from this, like we can kind of peg him, you know, gay man, he knows obviously John Water stuff. But then the pregnant mom saw my documentary about birth, you know, like it's just so funny.
So I think I've reinvented myself and I have changed my physicality both in way and you know obviously with my gray hair and I shave my head and my like, I have a lot of different facets of me. See, I look at you, and you look exactly the same from nine and two, and oh you haven't changed at all.
That's what I hear a lot, and I'm in my mind, I'm like, what you talking about? I've changed so much?
What are the years you were on the air with nine of two and I was ten years and ninety the entire decade, So nineteen ninety it launched. Yeah, so you launched before I went on the air in ninety three. So I went from ninety three to four, so basically around the same time frame or basically the same age. Wow, yep, yeah, that was Those were good times, weren't they.
Oh? Yes, the best. The nineties were the best.
Yeah. Down, I'm so glad. I talk about it with my new husband a lot. Ross he's not my new husband two and a half years we've been married, but he and I are no similar in age. He's he's he's incredible, but like we both are so and maybe you feel the same way. I'm so glad I was born when I was born, that I lived through our childhood, we lived through without cell phones, without you know, those distractions and you know, and our kids never knew what it was like before that.
So I don't know what's going to happen to the kids these days, to the young And I have my daughter the other day because she they have a new brother that's two years old, and I asked her, I was like, what do you think is going to be like for Jack when he's your age? And what she say, She's like, I don't know, because even you know, my middle one is able to look at my younger ones experience right now and think, I'm so glad I didn't have to deal with that. Yeah, because they're like four
or five years apart. Things change so much. But I guess we just adapt.
I mean, yes, we will. I wonder what I mean. I watched that Oprah special on AI last week. It was so sobering. It was so it's so daunting. I'm someone who's like, I don't even I was never taught computer skills, really no, I was never like, I learned to tie on a typewriter type. I'm really good at it. I was so good at it. My sister and I were. It's we're a year apart, but with that elective we were in the same like doing it at the same time,
so we got very competitive. So I'm really good at typing, but like I couldn't. I can't. I mean, it's embarrassing to say, but I can't do like Microsoft word.
I feel your pain, trust me. I'm like, oh, girls, somebody help me here. Yeah, I'm remote. I don't know how to work it.
And with social media, like I don't know how I'm I'm just I say, I'm a grandma with this stuff, and I just feel like, all right, it's just I just missed out on it. Like my kids are very savvy with that stuff. They're not big on social media. They don't do it neither. My kids they're like readers and they're I mean, I'm glad that they're not caught up in what seems to be something that's really really addicting and challenging to deal with.
Well, we're doing it. We are doing it. We are officially growing up, even though we don't know, we don't have our tech skills right now in this you know, magical phase of our lives. Are fifth And did you have any like trepidation when you were turning fifty when you're forty nine, you're like, oh, my god, what's going to happen?
I mean, so it's been five years because I'm fifty five. Yeah, it was weird because Okay, so I lost Christian, my partner, my second husband, when I was forty eight, so you know, I was like a late bloomer in every way. Like I was married from twenty five to thirty five with my first husband, the father and my kids. And I remarried to Christian when I was forty two, and then
at forty eight he passed. And so coming up on fifty, it was such a huge milestone and I was dealing with this loss and so much of it was wrapped up in trying to like heal from that, trying to like get the lesson. And you know, so I did celebrate turning fifty, and I you know, but I think it was it was bittersweet, you know, because he wasn't there for me. But yeah, and I did like a list.
I mean, something I did and it's not PC, but I did it as an exercise, in like a therapeutic exercise, which I've I've told people about it and they now do it for themselves. So when I was turning fifty, I did this list of all the things that I'd gone through, achieved, overcome from the time I turned forty to the time I turned fifty. And it is quite the list, Like it's it runs the gamut, Like it runs from like, oh, I stopped speaking to my mother
to I won my first emmy. I got to go on the Oprah Show and profess my love to Christian I. You know, it's like a list that's you know, it's a lot and and so that's so turning fifty for me, it was really like relishing all that I have lived through and I've I've lived such a life like I wouldn't trade places with anyone else all for all of it, Like even losing my partner. You know, I got so much out of that relationship, and I, you know, have this very very like strong knowing that he is with
me every step of the way. I believe he brought my new husband to me, like you know, and I got into plant medicine. I got it. Like there's so many things I've done since you know, turning forty and since losing him. Like it's like I said before, I feel like I'm the best me I I've ever been because I think I'm having like, I'm way more open in my fifties than I was in my twenties.
Me too, Me too, Yeah.
Like I mean I was yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean there's so many things that I was so close minded about and very judgmental about and just fear filled. And I think I'm less fear.
Filled, definitely. Yeah. I always say I'm less reactive now. I'm still impulsive, I'm still yeah quality, I'm an aries okay.
My son's and ares. I'm a virgo yeah and uh yeah, I don't even know what it means, but I'm.
Just on either.
I am who I am like like it's like there's no changing who I am. I like who I am right now. That's the key, right there. You love who you are.
It's the key to happiness, It's the key to freedom.
Yeah. But I kind of have always loved myself, like I kind of have. I mean, I'm away, he's like, I'm a work in progress and I'm you know, have a lot to learn. But I've always been a pretty good person. I'm a really good friend. I think I'm a really good mom, I'm a really good wife. I'm not a great actress. I'll admit that, Like I've been good. I've been really good, but I've also been really not good.
And I'm better. I think it playing being me, you know, being authentically myself than I am with taking on characters.
Well, that's a good thing to know about yourself. I love that you also are embracing your beautiful hair.
Yeah, well right now, I meant to put a hat on, but because my headphones are too big and the hat just helps it stay, and I forgot, But I forgotten. I kind of just blew it out really fast. But the fact that I have hair is a freaking miracle because five years ago I shaved my head. You probably are aware of this, but I shaved my head and went public about my issue that I was having, which
was with hair loss. Like it's called andrew genetic alopecia, my type of hair loss, and which is basically like getting older and women loser hair. You know, It's like there's no big you know, like I mean, it's just very normal for women to go through that. But for me, I was wearing extensions for a really long time and that was damaging my hair and the color I was putting on my hair. Every three weeks. I was having dye my hair and all of it just didn't agree
with me, and I finally just surrendered. And that was again a very traumatic experience for me. I'm someone who's an open book. Everyone's known me, they grew up with me, they know me for my show. I'm very honest and open about everything in my life, and in this case, I didn't. I was so ashamed that I was dealing with this, and I had it as like sort of this deep, dark secret, something I didn't even talk about
with my therapist. And so when I finally kind of came out and and just basically let go of like I'm going to just rock a bald head for the rest of my life. And you know, you don't know what you look like bald until you do it. All, Yeah, you don't know how to you like it. I looked so good. I looked so good. I was amazed that I have actually a good like shaped head, have a very small head. I like to think my brain isn't small, but my head is small. And so I was relieved.
But that's not even the point. The point is like I just like let go of it, like just bothering me, you know, in secret, And that was the release and lo and behold. You know, I used a product that that helped me, and I also I think stopped stressing about it, stopped putting extensions. Anyway, I don't know how I got onto that, but yeah, my gray hair, I'm very grateful for every strand thank you.
I want to go white someday, like any way, or do you have gray hair? Yeah? I have white hair.
You do, I think it's white? And so you have to do color your hair every three weeks? Is that you're.
Yeah, I'm going today? Actually you are?
Yeah, well lucky for your blonde, right, I assume you are a natural blonde. You don't have brown hair? Yeah, no, No, it's and I think with the pandemic, the timing of it, like the genius that with my the way it unfolded for me because I did this very deliberately at the end of twenty nineteen, Like on New Year's Eve Day, I had my friend documented, my friend Amanda Demi, who's a brilliant photographer. I wanted it documented because I knew
I had to be public about it. Like I didn't do it as like a I did it to be set free. But I felt like if I just shaved my head and came out with a shaved head. People would have thought, you know, that I had cancer god forbid, or that I was crazy, you know, like I just needed to tell my story, and so I was very deliberate about that. But it was right before the pandemic, and once the pandemic had happened, nobody could color their hair. Nobody.
So for me, like I just it would have been I would have been shaving my head, but it would have been under a different set of circumstances for sure.
I recently read one of my journal entries when I turned fifty, and I talked openly about how I felt about eight and the double standard with women and men versus men getting older, and I just I love that you don't give an f you just are who you are.
Yeah, And I love being this age. I mean I love it. It's like I have so much more just wisdom and peace. I mean, it's also my circumstances. So I recognize, like I'm privileged, I have money, and I you know, like I get it, but I've also like been through a lot and coming out the other side, like there's just an appreciation and a it's just yeah, my husband and I both are in this phase of just like stopping and smelling the roses and appreciating the
little things and the quiet and the calm. And yeah, because I recognize the world is crazy and there's so much that we can't control, which can make me crazy. It could literally, you know, like if I watch the news too much, it makes me spin. But my little bubble, my little bubble with my dog and my beautiful husband in our beautiful house and overlooking the ocean, it's just like, pinch me, please.
I mean I think that that. I feel like I'm almost there. You know. I'm a nineteen year old, but my twenty one year old moved back in which I love. But my husband is really ready for that chapter. He doesn't have children of his own, so he's ready to have me all to himself, which he hasn't had yet.
How do you feel about that? Are you ready?
Part of me's ready? Yeah? Because I love just hanging out and being just you know, going with the flow and just being chill. And we love doing that together. And it's really hard to do that when you have kids coming and going and doing what kids do. And so I'm like half and half on that one.
Yeah, I just didn't. That just wasn't part of my thing. I couldn't wait. And so we have actually like a rule in our well, not a rule, but I like an agreement that we our kids are never moving back and they can visit. They can visit. We're in the process of building a little guest house so that we have a proper space for people to visit and my kids who live my both my kids live in New
York together, So I definitely want them to visit. I just don't want like the moving back in, Like it just it just doesn't work for us, you know.
Yeah, I love that you have that boundary, though, like, oh yeah, I feel like I don't know if I could ever say that to my daughters, Like really I kind of want to.
I like if I even had that conversation. There's just an understanding. We don't need to spell it out, but there's like like they're they're launching, they're starting their own lives. My yeah, I want one son's in graduate school, the other ones in art school. They're thriving, they're happy. I
don't hear from them that often. I don't know, how about you, you talking to your daughters, maybe once or twice a week, Like lately, my older son Milo, he calls me just to fill me in on what's going on, and it's like such a joy I could cry because normally when they call me, it's they need something, there's something's wrong, you know, And lately it's been so nice that I get a phone call and like, what do you need? Nothing, I just wanted to fill you. I'm like, oh,
oh my god, this time has come feeling. It's amazing. Yeah, it's really Yeah, I'm really it's like that thing that like I'm really proud of who they are and that they're happy. Like that's like they're they're super happy. I've done my job, I think. I mean, there's always going to be blips in the road, but yeah, right now today I can truly celebrate that, like they're doing really well.
Yeah, and now your next job is just you, you in your life, you being happy, you choosing you. It's the best. I'm really good at that job. Yeah, it's working.
Wait.
You and i've both been married before, and we've both had to go through divorces in the you know spotlight.
Yes I have. I think what you've been married three times, I've been married three times and I say this is my third and last and favorite marriage. No, that's good, and I was very much in love with my first I was absolutely When I got married at twenty five, I thought it was forever. When I got married at forty two, I thought it was forever. But think, I think the piece that was missing if I can break
it down. And it's obviously way more complex than this, but just to simplify, I don't think I had the self love then and the knowing of who I was that I do now. Does that make sense.
One hundred percent? Yeah? I mean my husband and I joke about it sometimes because I will get insecure or feel a certain type of way and say, like, you know, this is old me. I don't do this anymore. Like he had the best years of my life, and I'd feel so bad that now I'm older because I'm nine years older than Dave, and I.
Feel for you.
I feel like he got the short end of the stick, almost like he You know, it could be perceived as such, but honestly, the truth is he's getting the best version of me that better, way better than any of the other two had because I've learned so much about myself and what I've worked so hard to learn more about myself so that I could be in a healthy relationship with somebody else, because I do love to be partnered, and I just was like struggling and not being able to,
you know, have success in that area. And so now I'm like, you, you may not have gotten all the glitz and the glamour of you know, that sudden fame and all the money. You know. I joke, and I'm like, I gave my first husband a Harley antique T bird, you know, a Corvette on this you know, all the things that the other husband's got. And he's like, yeah, wow, okay, now I'm much more sensible and less impulsive about like financial decisions.
Right. I was dating this guy after my first marriage ended. I was dating this guy for a number of years, and he was sort of he should have been a rebound, like it should have been a few months. He was like a hot trainer. But it turned into three and a half years and he, you know, he was he was really in love with me, I'd say, and he wanted to go to the next step and I wasn't
going to do that. And I remember I bought him a car, Like I gave him money to buy a car, and because I wanted to show my level of commitment to him, but I didn't want to commit like like further, like letting him move in or anything. So I did. I mean, yeah, and that's like ridiculous. Why like like the fact that I did. I can look back and I'm like, oh my god, recky, you know, and the fact that he took it, the fact that he took it, but anyway, anyway.
And he drove it right on out.
Yeah, well, I actually what I did is I gave him the money. I didn't even I gave him the money to buy the car of his choosing, basically a certain amount of money. I think it was like forty grand. I think it was forty grand. And of course I can remember that. And this is like in two thousand and five or two thousand and six, and yeah, so I gave him like and I was like, look, you can get whatever you want, but like you'd be an idiot to spend more than the forty grand, you know.
And I don't even remember what he got, but that was like an example of me just like that's like it's like whatever, I don't look back on that as like a fond memory.
This is true. This is true.
He probably doesn't either, maybe.
Hoefully he's not listening. You've been really open about your previous husband, Christian, who you talked about briefly here and there in this conversation, how he suffered from mental disease bipolar. I think, yes, he was bipolar. How did did you know about his mental struggles before you married him?
I did, I did when we got together. And our story is so crazy. We met through a house fire, like I accidentally started a house fire in the house I was living in. The house burned down, and that's what kind of brought us together. And it was one of those like it never should have happened. It's it's inexplicable, Like I can't cut wrap my head around why that happened,
other than it was divine intervention. And I was supposed to get together with Christian, and we got together very quickly, and he told me, oh, I've been diagnosed by polar and me, I didn't google it. I just said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a control freak. We all have our things like like like that's because I didn't know what bipolar meant.
I just I was that's always okay. It's like some sort of condition that you just kind of deal with, like I ADHD, you know, and so I never saw so he always was low lying depression, like the depressed. And he was suicidal actually when I met him, So like us getting together and him being a man of his word, when he committed to me, he changed his course. He was planning to take his life at that time. So he was someone that struggled with chronic pain. He
was someone who he had learning issues. He was brilliant and special and amazing, and he also had these incredible challenges. And so I knew when I married him that I was going to be taking care of him for the rest of his life. I was going to be his caretaker, you know. And I very much was his caretaker. I you know, he couldn't hold a job and all those things,
but you know, we were very much in love. And I believe when he did decide to he couldn't take it anymore in this body, in this in this three D body meat suit, he chose to check out. But I believe he like I took care of him when he was here, and he is taking care of me right now. Wherever he is. And you know, bipolar is something that I mean, bipolar people are the most extraordinarily
special and charismatic and challenged. You know, it's like they're both and and he see living through the psychotic episodes that I lived through with him and the mania. You know, I mostly dealt with him being like under, you know, being under like always like hard to get out of bed, hard to motivate, you know, just like just like you know, he couldn't kind of like rise to like you know, a baseline that was like functioning, you know, and but then when the mania trips in, then you oh my god,
he's like on fire. He's got all these ideas and he's getting up in the morning with me and he's oil pulling and he's going on a run. And I mean it was just like seeing him like at his best self. But then, you know, when you're not medicated and when you're not being treated in some way, you just keep going up and up and up to where
they think he thought he was. He was God, and he thought he could cure cancer with his hands, and he didn't need his range Rover, so he left it on the side of the road because he could time travel and he could. I mean, it was like that kind of crazy that was really really so traumatizing. Isn't a strong enough word for what I kind of experience for me of seeing him change on a dime and not being able to save him. Like that's the other thing.
It's like, I'm this manifesto, I've been able to really like take care of things, you know, I'm someone that like I can fix stuff, I can pay for stuff, I can find the best person. And in this case my beloved suffering partner, I could not save him, and that was really hard to come to terms with, you know. But I am not God. And he was here for as long as he was supposed to be here, and he was my greatest teacher, like a great love, like I would have said, my greatest love. And I would
never have been lucky enough to find love again. But I do feel like he was the step before for me to get to where I am now with this relationship with my new husband, Ross, who is the pinnacle of partners and and I think the work I did through getting healing from the loss of Christian made me be in a place where I could recognize the quality of human that I am attracting now, you know, because I would attract I mean the people that I was going to say got inside of me. But like you know,
I mean, I definitely am. It was less discerning than than I am now. And now I'm with I'm just with the most beautiful person for me, and yeah, it's it's the best. It's honestly the best.
Do you remember when you had that I Choose me moment where you were like, I'm going to let love happen for me again, because I know you were which time, I mean, this last thing feeling from that massive loss and all that went with that, and then you met Ross and you came to was it an impulsive to say when you met Ross too? Or was that something that you had to like choose to go down that road again?
You know, I was dating someone else, So I was dating. So here's okay, Okay, I was turning a wild woman.
I love it.
I know I was openly dating. So just you know, I don't cheat. I've never cheated, and as far as I know, I have never been cheated on in my life. I have never dealt with infidelity as far as I know. So I'm dealing with the hair stuff. I'm wearing these extensions. I'm keeping like the whole thing is secret because I'm so ashamed by it. And I'm turning fifty. Okay, I've lost my partner. I've lost what I think is going
to be the last great love of my life. How do I Who's going to want me in my fifties? You know? And then I shaved my head and I'm dating this guy and it's not I was holding on for dear life with this guy even though he was the wrong guy. And from the beginning he told me like he told me he doesn't want partnership. He wanted to be free, a free spirit, a Peter Pan. He
wanted that, you know. So it's like, I what do I do when I want something, I'm gonna I'm going to like push that square bag in that round hole, no matter what. And so I was distracted in this relationship that was not making me happy. And Ross comes into the picture. I was introduced to him by a mutual friend. I you know, I went out with him because I was in an open you know. The guy wanted an open thing. So I'm like, all right, whatever, wait.
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait, yeah, you are in an open relationship.
Yes, but for me, I was thinking, oh, I'm so open minded, I'm a free spirit. Okay, yeah, But turns out it brought out the worst in me. I was so jealous. I was so insecure. I'm not insecure. I told you, I love myself. I love every square inch of myself. And I was becoming this person that I did not recognize. And it was really Again, it was another learning experience for me because I find out that I'm actually a serial monogamist, like I actually, you know, yeah,
I'm not as open as I thought I was. So I was with that guy this beginning of the pandemic. The guy was perfectly nice guy. He just wasn't the guy. But I'm thinking he's the guy because there's no other guy. And I've got the gray. My hair was shaved, so I had like half inch of gray hair. I thought I look great, but I was. You know, I'm definitely not everyone's type. And I get introduced to Ross and what drew me to him is that he grew up Mormon. He grew up Mormon. Then this is before the Real
Housewives of Salt Lake City. Okay, but I'm like fascinated I'm an next talk show host. I love like humanity and and so I was curious. I went out with him literally to talk his ear off about Mormonism and just to hear all the crazy stuff that goes on behind the scenes. He and he's also six foot six, Okay, he's a giant. I am five ' three. On a good day, I was wearing a moomoo. I was wearing a giant moumou. He said I looked like I was
four hundred pounds. He said it was false advertising. But yeah, we went out and it was not a love connection like the first date was not. It was like one of those awkward COVID like hugs. You know you want to hug, but like you don't want to die from it, and so it was just like bye, see you again,
you know never, and we we. I reached out to him like three weeks after that, when I was medicating self medicating at home on a couple of cocktails and another thing that we won't mention, but basically I was like hi, and I wrote him, you know, I'd broken up with the other guy again. We've gotten back together, broke up again, And I wrote Ross. I was like, are we ever going to hang out again? He's like sure,
and I was like, come over. And he was a five minute walk from my house where I was living. I was living in the Marina. Five minute walk. He walks over and is like sandals and his red solo, spicy marg and a cup and yeah, I mean, truth be told. I did tell him. I warned him that I'm gonna I'm going to I can't believe I'm want to say this. I warned him that I'm going to be the best lover he's ever had.
Oh, I love it, You're confident.
And then yeah, and then I passed out and then he you know. So basically that was our meet cute story, and then we became each other. Well, he became my booty call for a number of months while I was still seeing the other guy. I was very open. I told raw, look, I'm a little bit bit of a head case, blah blah blah. But then I literally saw the light. I don't know if you follow like like the moon and astrology in the moon and like, so there was a super blue moon on Halloween of twenty twenty.
I don't know if that rings a bell to you, but it was just a big thing, and my friends were telling me, oh, this is a portal you know, knowing and have an intention. Da da dah. And so that was the night. We've been dating for like three months casually, and that was the night on Halloween night where I literally it was like a rom com where I looked and did a double take in my house.
He came over and i'd cause I wrote him I was supposed to a party and I canceled, and then I wrote to him and I was like, hey, come over, and this time he put his foot down and he's like, Okay, I'll come over, but I'm staying over this time. You're gonna have to deal with me in the morning, because every other time he'd left, you know, when we finished. And so we that night he came over and he sat on my couch. I remember looking at him and doing a double take, and I was like, Oh, it's you.
It's always been you are the one. And that was it, Like it's like the light bulb went on over my head. And then he was he'd been waiting and he doesn't like to admit that, but he was. He was in love with me and waiting for me to come around and we've been together ever since. That was Halloween of twenty twenty and we got married in January twenty twenty two. And we are the happiest people in our fifties that I think you'll ever meet. It's like when it's right,
it's right. We've never had an argument, we've never had a crossword, we've never gotten sick of each other, and we spend all of our time together when we're not working. It's which is a lot.
Oh my god. I love this conversation so much.
It's so good.
It's so good. We're going to continue this conver We are going to continue it, but on your podcast Yay. Before we go, I want to ask you, Ricky Lake, what was your last I Choose me moment?
This morning, I choose to take really good care of my body and my mind. And so I go on a hike every single morning. As I said, I live in Malibu, and I go out o my door and I do a three mile hike with my dog, most of the time with my husband. This morning, he didn't join me, and then I forced myself to go to my Lagrie pilates class. I do that three to four times a week, and so it's you know, it's like,
would I rather stay in bed sometimes? But no, this is done so much for my body and my mind and my spirit, and so that is what I did. That was absolutely a choose me moment.
Love it. Hey, I'll see you on the other side.
Yeah, I can't wait. Be there, be square.
This conversation with Ricky has been too good. We are going to continue part two over on her podcast, The High Life. We'll link to the episode in our show notes, so be sure to check the rest of this conversation out as we continue to choose ourselves each week. I want you to do something fun for yourself this week that will be a mood booster whenever you need it. I want you to make a playlist of all your favorite upbeat songs, music you want to sing and roll
down the windows. Two songs that make you want to dance in the kitchen while you're cooking. No sad emo songs on this playlist. Okay, music can be so therapeutic. I want you to make your own I Choose Me playlist. You will find the song in a Mood by Ice Spice online. It always puts me in a good mood. I don't know there's just something about it. Thanks for
listening to I Choose Me. You can check out all the social links in our show notes and the link to part two of this incredible conversation with Ricky Lake. So rate and review the podcast and use the hashtag I Choose Me. I hope you'll be here with me next week. I love you, guys,